Dwelling Places (22 page)

Rita calls before Jodie has a chance to pick up the phone. This happens a lot. They agree that Jodie will pick up Rita in about half an hour. When Jodie puts down the phone, Kenzie is standing at the kitchen sink, looking at her.

“Hi, sweetie—you find something to eat?”

“Yeah.” Kenzie looks worried, or expectant.

“Everything okay?” Jodie moves close enough to brush Kenzie's hair back from her face. The child is perfect, absolutely blooming. Jodie can feel the energy sparking off of her. What she would give to feel that new and full of promise.

“Mom, have you heard about the women's retreat in January?”

“At the Baptist church?”

“Uh-huh. I hear it's really a good retreat. Jenna's mom went last year and is going again. Their speaker for the day is this woman who's written a book—” Kenzie holds up a pink brochure. On the first fold is the barely intelligible photocopy of a book cover. The title is in loopy script above a picture of a calendar page: “Being God's Woman in a World of Change.”

“I see.” Jodie takes the brochure and tries to read it as she searches for reasons not to go. “January?”

“Yes, and they're taking registrations now. It looks really helpful.” Kenzie's eyes are full of more than energy or enthusiasm. Jodie sees longing there too, not unlike what she has seen in her own reflection lately.

“Is it a mother-daughter thing?” Jodie hands back the brochure. “Are you planning to go?”

“It's not mother-daughter, but I'll go with you if you want.”

“Well, I'll think about it, okay?”

“Okay. You want Jenna's mom to call you and tell you about last year's retreat?”

“Sure, if she wants.” Jodie feels the need to change the subject. “What about you? Is the youth group planning a fall or winter retreat?”

“Sure, but I don't think I'll go.”

“Why not?” Jodie gets her purse from the desk near the pantry. Time to go get Rita.

“I'd rather go to the adult retreat. The youth group is kind of lame these days.”

“Really? I thought you liked it. You're spending a lot of time there.”

Kenzie looks away. “But they're not very mature.” When Jodie smiles, Kenzie adds, “I mean, as far as Scripture goes, they're not very understanding. I just feel like God is showing me so much, and the others don't get it.”

“Well, give them time. Maybe you're just a few steps ahead of them. You always were very smart.” Jodie grabs the truck keys from
the hook beside the back door. She looks back at her daughter, who seems a bit sad. “You want to come shopping with Grandma and me?”

“No, that's all right. I've got stuff to do,” she says as Jodie goes out the door.

Jodie

She can vaguely remember when it was a joy to cook a holiday dinner. She and Rita (and in the old days, Marty) set up stations all over the kitchen and dining room, cutting up vegetables, mixing up pies, getting out the good china, decorating more than usual. The preparation was actually more enjoyable than the eating. Talk was easy when they were all working with their hands. They would trade advice and be one another's taste testers. And they had made most of the dishes many times before; there was little stress about how anything would turn out. They started early in the day and knew that everything would get done.

The aromas would hang first in the kitchen and then seep into other rooms of the house as the hours went by. A cloud of food
smells would drug the men and kids when they came in the door, bringing with them crisp air from outdoors.

It was a lot of hard work, but it never felt hard. But today, with Rita and her awful cough and no one else around, there is little talk and no satisfaction to speak of. The two of them must do it all, even though they call on Kenzie several times to help and she does so happily enough.

Rita is obviously not well, but the woman is unable to admit physical failures of any kind. She treats every ailment with Alka-Seltzer, cough drops, Vick's Vaporub, and Epsom salts. She drinks coffee with extra milk sometimes, or she makes hot lemonade with honey and a bit of whiskey or rum. She believes that antibiotics weaken a person's immune system, so does not go to the doctor because the first thing a doctor does for infection is prescribe antibiotics. Rita gathers her information from a variety of sources, everything from
Reader's Digest
to Paul Harvey and talk radio, but regardless of what information is actually given, she comes down on the side of not trusting medical doctors. First of all, they charge too much. Second, they don't treat old people with much respect. They act like they don't hear questions, or they don't think older folks can understand a reasonable explanation anyway.

Rita has no personal history of mistreatment by doctors. She distrusts them out of general principle. She doesn't want the doctor bills. She hates taking medicine, even though she delivers pills to half a dozen of her neighbors and helps them count out what they'll need for each day so they don't get confused and overdose or forget to take them. She reads the labels and directions carefully, and if the directions aren't clear, she calls the pharmacist and batters him with questions. If one of her “patients” is taking several medications at once, she calls the pharmacist to make sure they're not going to form some deadly reaction. Mom should have been a nurse, Jodie thinks, because she likes taking command of situations, and she manages to get people to do what's good for them, even if they don't want to. But she could never have been a nurse, despising medicine as she does.

Today she has already had a hot rum toddy, and it's only ten in the morning. The cough is horribly congested, and at times Mom wheezes after a coughing spell. Twice Jodie considers hauling her to the emergency room. But she knows the scene that will cause. So she works intently on dough for dinner rolls and the extra pan of dressing and the honeyed carrots and the gelatin salad and the other dishes that are under her charge. Maybe working in the school cafeteria has soured her on cooking. Or maybe she's just not thankful on this Thanksgiving. Maybe what she really dreads is the moment when they all sit down together and have little to say to each other; she has come to dread dinnertime on any day, even if it's only Mack and Kenzie with her. She hears them talking to each other, and she can tell how hard they're trying to make everybody happy. Mack is trying to prove that his life is worth something, and Kenzie is trying to bring them all back to God. Neither of them can speak in a way that other people understand. Mack will list all that he's done today; he'll voice opinions that aren't even important to him anymore, then sit back and look haunted when silence falls. And in Kenzie there now seems to be a constant, quiet panic. She talks more and more about Jesus and prayer and Satan. They do their best to tolerate it without participating in her fervor. They had a small portion of such fervor themselves, years ago, back when faith was a manageable, reasonable thing. But it has ceased to be either for a long time now.

After lunch, Rita lies down in the living room for a nap. She's taken cold medicine and is groggy. Mack is halfway to Iowa City by now, to pick up Aunt Linda, who is eighty-four and resides in an assisted living community. It's hard for her to travel much anymore, but she wanted to be here on the farm for Thanksgiving, and they've not been to see her in a while.

The kids are somewhere, maybe upstairs or roaming the countryside. She doesn't try to keep track.

The house is quiet. Jodie's feet and legs hurt; she's been up and working on food since five this morning. She'll take a break while Rita naps.

She eyes the kitchen phone and considers risks. Rita is three rooms away, and no one else is close enough to overhear a word she says.

He said that he would be home until early evening, when he'd go out to his parents' for Thanksgiving dinner. She said that she wouldn't have opportunity to call him, with family around all day.

It is understood between the two of them that he must never call her at home. But she can call him when it's safe to do so. It's also understood that talking every day isn't appropriate. They've been together four times now, and they're enjoying it a lot, but they are both still afraid to be too close too soon.

She punches in the number. He picks up on the first ring.

“Hey,” she says, knowing that he'll know even from one word that it's her. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Happy Thanksgiving. I'm glad you called.”

“Are you just sitting at home by yourself?”

“Been watching parades and football, doing stuff around the house. I'm just chilling out, channel surfing, drinking some beer.”

“Oh, that's nice.”

“Thinking of you.”

The words bring instant happiness. “That's nice too.”

“How are you?”

“Oh, you know. It's Thanksgiving. I'm cooking all day.”

“You having a bunch of people over?”

“Just Mack and the kids and his mom and great-aunt. But it's still a major dinner. I'm not in the mood to do it really, but it's what we do.”

“What are you in the mood for?”

“I think you know.” She hides her face behind the receiver, even though nobody's around to see her grin like an idiot.

“Just run over here for a quickie.”

“Right. I'll do that between the pumpkin pie and cranberry salad.”

“I know. Can't blame me for asking.”

They talk for ten minutes, about nothing in particular. It's just good to hear his voice and to give him the sound of hers. It's good to
know that he's out there thinking of her, that he can't wait to get his hands on her again. Suddenly her day is full of energy. Suddenly she's thankful.

When they hang up, she can't go back to work right away. Rita is still asleep on the sofa. Jodie wanders the house, looking out of windows, smoothing tablecloths, and rearranging throws on chairs and sofas. She is restless, happy, sad, anxious. All she really wants is to be in a bed in some other county with Terry all over her. To find a special place full of liveliness and hope.

Rita

Rita has never felt particularly close to Aunt Linda. She's actually Taylor Senior's aunt, although she is young enough to be his older sister. Has a lot of Dutch in her, which may be the problem. The Dutch people Rita has known tend to be tight-lipped and judgmental, as if they're sure you haven't cleaned your house well enough. Actually, she's not known that many Dutch people, but it only takes a couple to make a strong impression. Taylor's parents were good people but sort of stiff. They died in the early years of Rita and Taylor's marriage, and she never felt very close to them either.

Aunt Linda walks in the house ahead of Mack wearing a dark green plush coat. Her silver hair is shaped against her head in careful curls; the woman has had her hair done once a week for decades, one thing that makes her indiscernible to Rita. Aunt Linda always looks good for her age, but today she walks much more slowly than before. She has survived hip surgery this past year, and a person her age doesn't recover from such things quickly. Her face is made up just enough to be appropriate, and she wears nice jewelry but not a lot of it. She wraps herself and her green coat around one person after another, including Rita. Aunt Linda is much older than Rita. She towers over Rita by a foot and is slender in the way well-to-do people stay slender; they have the luxury of eating just the right foods, and they go to the doctor for every little ailment. For years Aunt Linda has walked every day—for
no reason except to walk. Her joints haven't been ruined by labor on a farm; her husband owned a clothing store and made a good living for them. Rita doesn't consider that envy has anything to do with her lack of connection to Aunt Linda; she decided long ago that envy is a waste of time. The woman has simply never interested her much. Rita greets her with the usual warmth and respect.

Rita wishes Jodie could be a little brighter today. Usually she's more energetic and talkative at holiday time. She chatters about the recipes or recounts family stories while they work. Jodie has always been a fine person to be with during celebrations; she can make any dinner into a feast. But Jodie has been quiet today, and she acts irritated every time Rita has a coughing fit, as if it were purposeful.

They eat at five, the world outside already growing dark and chilly, while the room inside glows with silverware and steamy bowls. The conversation is fairly slow until Kenzie asks Aunt Linda about her grandfather, and the old woman lights up and pats her curls and begins to tell stories of former generations. Her grandfather was a circuit rider, a preacher who traveled through the countryside tending to small, scattered Methodist congregations. Aunt Linda quickly moves to the story of her brother, who fought in World War II, was wounded in France, and befriended the Belgian soldier in the next bed, who later came to the States to visit and ended up marrying Aunt Linda. Young Taylor perks up and asks more questions about the war, and Rita finds herself in a strange but friendly dialogue with Aunt Linda. Their memories merge in some places, but because of their age difference they have quite different recollections of the times and events. It's as if they are filling in gaps for each other. An hour later everyone has finished Thanksgiving dinner, and Jodie is clearing the table. She's hardly said a word.

It is the scene in the kitchen a while later that startles Rita. Jodie is making coffee to go with the pumpkin and pecan pies. Kenzie is washing dishes. Aunt Linda and Mack both stand at the counter near the doorway to the dining room. They are bending over something intently. Rita comes closer to see what is going on.

“I take two of these a day, three of these. On some days, when I feel the need, I take one of those in the morning. This one I take at night only.” Aunt Linda is speaking over a pill container, the kind with sections labeled for days of the week and morning, afternoon, or evening. Her well-kept hands are pointing out various pills in pinks and yellows. She's explaining her regimen to Mack.

“Well, I may have you beat. Look at this.” Mack has taken small prescription bottles out of the pocket of his jacket, which hangs on the back of the door. He lays them out and recites:

“Both of these morning and evening. This three times a day. This in the morning only. This one at night.”

“How do you keep them straight?”

“I line them up on the shelf. So far it hasn't been a problem.”

“You need a little box like mine. I load it up at the beginning of the week, then just obey the little lids.” She chuckles. They both raise pills and glasses of water. “Bon appetit,” says Aunt Linda. Mack nods and clinks his glass against hers.

Rita walks away, shaking her head. As if this medicine business were a laughing matter. Although she wishes for stronger medicine of her own about now. The coughing has persisted all evening, making the rest of them look at her with concern on their faces, which is irritating. She left her cough syrup at home, and the kind Jodie gave her isn't as potent.

Kenzie

Being around Aunt Linda always makes Kenzie feel better. The woman is old and gentle and sophisticated, and the calm about her makes Kenzie think that this must be what nuns are like. She's hardly ever been around nuns, but she can't imagine such serenity existing without some direct connection to Jesus. She knows that Aunt Linda has gone to the same church for years and years. She wants to ask her some question that will draw the conversation to that. She tried to do that when she asked, during dinner, about Grandfather Loughlin, who
had been a pastor on the frontier. But Aunt Linda slipped past that to war stories. Evidently, to her, conviction by the Holy Spirit was just normal life and conviction worth talking about was the kind that would sneak behind enemy lines. Kenzie wants to ask Aunt Linda about her prayer life, but she senses that prayer is a very private thing to her. This Kenzie can understand. But she likes to imagine Aunt Linda praying at an altar, maybe one different from the altar at the Baptist church, but similar in a lot of ways. She walks and talks like someone who has practiced true devotion for many years.

This impression doesn't add up when Aunt Linda gets out all her pill bottles. Kenzie has to remind herself that it wasn't until recently, not until she discovered the teachings of Reverend Francis, that she herself realized the spiritual compromise in the taking of medicines. Kenzie decides to give Aunt Linda some slack in this area, since she is obviously godly and not the type to lean on crutches. In some scheme of need and answer, medicine for blood pressure is probably not in the same category with medicine for despair. She listens closely to Aunt Linda and Dad comparing their medicines. She wishes Aunt Linda would ask more questions about exactly why Dad is taking this or that. She's not sure how much Aunt Linda knows about Dad's stay at the hospital, but she looks like the type who could get to the bottom of something fast.